i woke up

I woke up , but the desire to sleep had not completely abandoned me...i laid in the bed, trying to overcome my sleeping demons..the room was dark , the small green bulb, insignificant when the tube light was switched on, was gleaming at its brightest but its powers were limited. I closed my eyes. I heard a few voices. It was my grandmother talking with one of our neighbours.

The neighbour is a woman, probably in late 30s now. I don’t know her name, ”aunty” is the way i usually address her. Here is her maternal home. she is divorced and lives with aging her father and mother. She is not really old , has two sons. Recently she was also not being able to walk properly due to some ailment. She must have been a feisty young girl someday, but today she seemed so weak and feeble. Today , she had gone to a ‘satsang’ and my grandmother, being as inquisitive as she always is , had stopped her in the balcony to ask what had been going on lately. The neighbour was telling her how the ‘bhajans’ and the pious ambiance of the “satsang” relieved her momentarily of her pains. The rest was banal chit chat and at the end my grandmother blessed her as she did to everyone (when she was in a good mood that is).there was something about that conversation that broke my sleep and it got me thinking , thinking strange. Today , i lie in this bed with infinite dreams in my eyes, infinite hopes for a better future, infinite possibilities. But most of the people around me, their life today is merely is merely a life of reconciliation, a life of reconsideration, a life of adjustment. It was not what they had wished for or even hoped for. For most of them they had limited or no hope to look forward to. Mid life, if i find myself with nothing ahead to look forward to , i just earn money ,somehow manage to comply with my duties, if i just live life fighting with the world at every point or worse, if i live life the way the world forces me to live ... what will i do then ?

If i don’t create something, if i don’t write ,if i don’t do poetry ,if i don’t do the thing i like doing what’s the point of existence just for the sake of it.

With all these thoughts spinning in my head, i went to have a glass of water. Returning, i hung by the balcony and looked down on the streets. I saw children playing badminton. They were enjoying themselves to the tilt. But that fun was continually disrupted by the altercations they had . these arguments stemmed from their desire to win and it completely overrode the feeling of sheer joy and merriment they had while enjoying the wonderful game of badminton. It was strange i was thinking on those lines today, because i am a firm believer of “YOU PLAY TO WIN”. Had I been on the field , I would have been behaving the exact same way the kids were doing.

But that day, from above, it seemed different. I realised the result is not important, the process is.

The destination is not all that matters, the journey does.